2. Rawls, A Theory of Justice loses to Mill, Utilitarianism by 247–229

3. Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics loses to Mill, Utilitarianism by 312–149, loses to Rawls, A Theory of Justice by 313–146

4. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality loses to Mill, Utilitarianism by 317–165, loses to Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics by 221–210

5. Moore, Principia Ethica loses to Mill, Utilitarianism by 364–114, loses to Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality by 232–211

6. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil loses to Mill, Utilitarianism by 342–129, loses to Moore, Principia Ethica by 228–205

7. Marx, The 1844 Manuscripts loses to Mill, Utilitarianism by 356–111, loses to Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil by 209–176

8. Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy loses to Mill, Utilitarianism by 373–77, loses to Marx, The 1844 Manuscripts by 213–178

9. Hegel, Philosophy of Right loses to Mill, Utilitarianism by 347–105, loses to Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy by 187–185

10. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong loses to Mill, Utilitarianism by 378–60, loses to Hegel, Philosophy of Right by 194–169

Runners-up for the top ten were Ross's The Right and the Good and Williams's collection Moral Luck. The clearest omission from the survey was Murdoch's The Sovereignty of Good, as several correspondents pointed out.

My own views: I was surprised that Mill and Rawls beat Sidgwick, and I was particularly surprised by the weak showing of Stevenson's Ethics and Language, which, while not popular with practitioners of normative ethics, is surely one of the classics of twentieth-century Anglophone philosophy.

Thoughts from readers on the results? Signed comments will be strongly preferred.

Some folks may remember that about ten years ago--before the blog, and back when Blackwell had set up an e-mail "update service" for the PGR--I tried to start surveying student opinion about the climate (for women, for men, for students in general, all were fair game) in their graduate programs. The results were not helpful: on the one hand, we got feedback from a lone complainer, and no one else, from many programs; on the other, some departments mobilized their students to write en masse with gushing praise. I don't see a way around this, absent substantial funding for investigators to go department-by-department to collect information and do detailed interviews and scrutiny of departments. The recent "Climate for Women" fiasco in the SPEP/SAAP Guide to Philosophy Programs just confirms the point. The remaining alternative, of course, is the one I have long urged (and reiterate annually), namely, that students have to visit and talk to current students at the programs they are considering. Whereas most active philosophers have moderately well-informed views about the quality of work done by other philosophers (such that a survey aggregating their opinions about faculty quality can produce useful results), most faculty and students do not have such views about the "climate" for students elsewhere. There is no substitute, at least at present, for prospective students doing the hard work of investigating the programs they are considering for themselves.

On the matter of philosophical pluralism, based on my experience in the UO Philosophy Department, I think that Brian Leiter is correct that there are now two incompatible meanings of pluralism. However, philosophy departments are not always intellectually monolithic. My colleagues in the department do not hold the standard meaning of pluralism in our profession, either intellectually or in practice. I think that the standard meaning of pluralism allows for different approaches and methodologies, for example, broadly speaking, both analytic and continental, as well as American philosophy, and varied new subfields, including feminism and the study of race. The overriding idea is that philosophical practice not become an ideology on any side. My sense has been that the new pluralism excludes the possibility of genuine debate about core issues and methodologies and rejects a great deal that is valuable in the history of philosophy, with a very low tolerance for disagreement or self-criticism; it becomes implicitly normative, which can lead to a defensive attitude instead of an inquiring one. There is a tendency to circle the wagons around what an individual in a context happens to do; I think that what an individual philosopher spends her time on should be viewed by her as contingent to a much larger philosophical picture. I think that we all need to be humble about our own hobby horses and not be too quick to dismiss the general intellectual standards of the oldest academic profession.

My presence in the U of O philosophy department results in the de facto pluralism of the department--in the standard meaning of pluralism--and the result is not always harmonious. As a member of the faculty of the University of Oregon Department of Philosophy, I will continue to pursue my own work, support my students (male as well as female), and do the best I can to uphold professional and ethical standards, including basic norms of collegiality, respect, and civility in academic life. I expect the same from my colleagues.

I wanted to know your thoughts or thoughts from readers on some of the best philosophy writers for students to model their writing style. Modeling someone's writing style seems like a great way for students to find their own voice as a writer. I began my philosophical career modeling my writing style after John Rawls. At the time, I enjoyed the direct clarity with paragraphs starting with "First" and "Second." However, this changed later when I read someone like Susan Wolf who is a brilliant writer and surpasses Rawls. Knowing the differences in philosophical writing really helped me and I would appreciate any help.

Thoughts from readers? I take it the question here concerns writing styles that students might profitably try to emulate as they develop their own philosophical style, as opposed to great stylists along various aesthetic dimensions (Rawls probably is a good case of the former, but not of the latter).

The comic opera in Washington this summer, which disgusts the country and bewilders the world, may have no analogue in the annals of parliamentary democracy.

The spectacle is even coming to frighten the sponsors of the charade. Corporate power is now concerned that the extremists they helped put in office may in fact bring down the edifice on which their own wealth and privilege relies, the powerful nanny state that caters to their interests.

Corporate power's ascendancy over politics and society - by now mostly financial - has reached the point that both political organizations, which at this stage barely resemble traditional parties, are far to the right of the population on the major issues under debate.

For the public, the primary domestic concern is unemployment. Under current circumstances, that crisis can be overcome only by a significant government stimulus, well beyond the recent one, which barely matched decline in state and local spending - though even that limited initiative probably saved millions of jobs.

For financial institutions the primary concern is the deficit. Therefore, only the deficit is under discussion. A large majority of the population favor addressing the deficit by taxing the very rich (72 percent, 27 percent opposed), reports a Washington Post-ABC News poll. Cutting health programs is opposed by overwhelming majorities (69 percent Medicaid, 78 percent Medicare). The likely outcome is therefore the opposite....

In the dog days of summer, we might as well do another reader poll, this time on the best or most important books in ethics over the last two centuries--no living authors are on the list, just the departed greats. No doubt I've omitted something worthy, but such is internet polling science. Have fun! We'll discuss the results next week.

UPDATE: An alert reader caught the first error: Habermas, who has a book in the poll, is no youngster, but he is quite alive! Apologies to Professor Habermas!

Within the last few years, there was an interview with Peter Singer in which he remarked that what made Animal Liberation so influential was the vivid and disturbing description of factory farming practices in Chapter 3, rather than the utilitarian argument per se. But now I can not remember where this interview appeared. Does this ring a bell for anyone? Comments open and references gratefully received!

...or the so-called "Pluralist Guide," as they prefer to (misleadingly) call it.

One really couldn't make stuff like this up.

Philosopher Jacquelin Kegley (Cal State/Bakersfield), the President of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy (SAAP) and herself one of just ten evaluators for the "American Philosophy" section of the fake "Pluralist Guide" (all of whom are also members of SAAP who end up "strongly recommending" programs at the center of the SAAP universe), has written to me and the Guide claiming that I claimed that SAAP produced the Guide and then denying that. Of course, I never claimed that, just as I never claimed that SPEP "officially" produced portions of the Guide either. What I did claim, and which is obviously true, is that all the evaluators for American philosophy are members of SAAP (including the protesting President, Professor Kegley!), and as a result what you get is a set of recommendations that reflects how the world looks to SAAP philosophers, but not to many other scholars of American philosophy. So, too, 90% (maybe more) of the evaluators for Continental philosophy are SPEP members, with similarly predictable results.

Again, I think it's good that the philosophers involved with SPEP and SAAP have shared their view of how their fields look, even if that vision may seem benighted to others. But the fake "Pluralist" Guide could avoid problems by not claiming a completely misleading title, for it has nothing to do with pluralism, as we have now noted ad nauseam. The SPEP/SAAP Guide is a more accurate shorthand under the circumstances, and so I will continue to use it along with "Pluralist [sic] Guide" and "fake Pluralist Guide."

The Democrats aren't failing to stand up to Republicans and failing to enact sensible reforms that benefit the middle class because they genuinely believe there's political hay to be made moving to the right. They're doing it because they do not represent any actual voters. I know I've said this before, but they are not a progressive political party, not even secretly, deep inside. They just play one on television.

For evidence, all you have to do is look at this latest fiasco.

The Republicans in this debt debate fought like wolves or alley thugs, biting and scratching and using blades and rocks and shards of glass and every weapon they could reach.

The Democrats, despite sitting in the White House, the most awesome repository of political power on the planet, didn't fight at all. They made a show of a tussle for a good long time -- as fixed fights go, you don't see many that last into the 11th and 12th rounds, like this one did -- but at the final hour, they let out a whimper and took a dive.

We probably need to start wondering why this keeps happening. Also, this: if the Democrats suck so bad at political combat, then how come they continue to be rewarded with such massive quantities of campaign contributions? When the final tally comes in for the 2012 presidential race, who among us wouldn't bet that Barack Obama is going to beat his Republican opponent in the fundraising column very handily? At the very least, he won't be out-funded, I can almost guarantee that.

And what does that mean? Who spends hundreds of millions of dollars for what looks, on the outside, like rank incompetence?

It strains the imagination to think that the country's smartest businessmen keep paying top dollar for such lousy performance. Is it possible that by "surrendering" at the 11th hour and signing off on a deal that presages deep cuts in spending for the middle class, but avoids tax increases for the rich, Obama is doing exactly what was expected of him?

Not surprising, since they don't loom large as relevant constituencies in a plutocracy.

(Thanks to Will Fleischer for the pointer.)

ADDENDUM: Reader Ian Hensley writes:

I think your most recent blog posting on the debt ceiling deal's effect on student loans is a bit vague. My understanding of the ramifications for student loans is that graduate students who receive loans after July 2012 will not be able to receive subsidized loans. Instead, they will receive unsubsidized loans and will have interest accrue on them even while they are in school. However, graduate students with subsidized student loans disbursed while they were undergrads (a majority of philosophy grad students, I suspect--me included!) will not have interest accrue on their loans while they are in school because their loans were disbursed before July 2012. The changes only affect new loans. At least, I hope that is the correct understanding of the changes.

While this might not be ideal, I don't think this change will affect most philosophy graduate students. It would only affect them if they are planning to take out new loans after July 2012 for graduate study.

Philosopher Bence Nanay (Antwerp & Cambridge) has been awarded a multi-year one million Euro grant (the 'Odysseus Grant' from the Flemish Research Foundation) for a project on the interface between perception and action. An announcement (in Dutch) is here.